


Aegri Somnia

by noveltea



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-12
Updated: 2010-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-07 22:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noveltea/pseuds/noveltea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set between X-Men and X-Men 2. Jean's having nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aegri Somnia

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Jean Grey and all X-men related stuff belong to marvel and the movie rights owners.
> 
> Written for the 2004 X-Men Movie Ficathon (LJ), for samfeasor.

_The past and present melded together, becoming difficult to untangle the fine differences between the two states. Old sins, old fears, old scars that have only begun to heal. They mixed with new fears and new hurts._

_It began with death, and so death continued, and continues, with no foreseeable end in a torn world where war seems almost commonplace. Too bad her lack of control over such a powerful gift will inevitably be her downfall._

 

Jean Grey woke, startled, in the darkness of the room she shared with her fiancé. A glance at the clock on the bedside table told her it was 2am in the morning. Much too early to be awake, even for her, though now it was becoming something of a habit. She could barely remember a night when she'd had a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

Nightmares were now her constant companion. An unknown enemy that made her afraid to close her eyes at night, regardless of the fact that Scott slept right beside her, and held her until she inevitably fell asleep. But he was only her waking protector, when she closed her eyes his ability to protect her faltered, and she was left to fight her own battles.

He knew about the nightmares; there was no way he could have missed the signs. She woke up startled half the time, sometimes crying, sometimes screaming. Sometimes her telekinesis kicked in while she was dreaming, and she would wake up to find the bedroom disheveled, all their belongings scattered across the floor. Scott would silently get out of bed and help her clean up – she couldn't sleep after a nightmare that bad, and the cleaning helped her to forget about the images in her head.

He'd stopped asking what she dreamt about.

For a while she'd contemplated telling him – but what could she say? She saw death and destruction. She felt pain, and the odd sense of relief that came afterwards. More often than not she saw events of her past, painful memories that no matter how hard she tried to bury them they came back to haunt her nearly 20 years later, mixing in with the painful events of only a few months ago.

That's what Scott believed her nightmares to be about. Liberty Island. The attack by Magneto and his Brotherhood which had nearly cost the lives of not only Professor Xavier, but of one of their students, Marie, and through her, Logan.

Sometimes it was his voice she heard screaming in her head. He was always screaming No! to a shadowed figure hidden behind a wall of frozen glass that she couldn't see past. She never mentioned that Logan was in her dreams, fearing how Scott would take that. She'd be lying if she said there wasn't an attraction between them, but she was in love with Scott. He was the one who held her after a nightmare, and never asked because that was the way she wanted it.

It was her private battle.

 

_It was dark, and cold, and she felt wet. She felt hot at the same time, as if she was burning from inside out. The pressure around her was constricting and she felt like she couldn't breathe. Time moved slowly here._

_As suddenly as those feelings were recognized they disappeared and she was left standing in the copper casing at Liberty Island, looking up at the torch. Or what was left of it. She looked to her left, and then right; Scott and Ororo were both frozen in time, both looking up yet unmoving. She looked up again, and could faintly see the figure of Logan cradling the girl in his arms._

_There was a tug at her mind, and suddenly she was falling. The world had dissolved around her and she was 10 years old again, cradling Annie Richardson in her arms as she felt her best friend die. She followed her friend down into the abyss that later she realized had been the hidden confines of her own mind. Only one person had been able to save her, and now he, too, lay comatose on a metallic medical bed._

_Cool. That was the sensation she felt. She was trapped in a cool place. It was tinged blue, and everything was blurred. Sometimes flashes of red and orange appeared when she tried to look at her own limbs._

_This wasn't her._

_This wasn't real._

 

It wasn't real. She told herself over, and over, and over.

Lately the nightmares had followed her into waking consciousness. She didn't want to believe that daydreaming could be so traumatic – weren't daydreams supposed to be beneficial? She couldn't remember.

Scott wasn't the only person concerned about her. The Professor frequently asked how she was, deep concern evident in his wiser eyes. He'd saved her once, saved her from herself. And then she'd fought to keep him alive with technology that rivaled no one else. She was a doctor; it was her job to save people's lives.

She wondered why she dreamed so much of death.

Sometimes she stared blankly ahead when she was teaching the students. They'd learned to take it in stride, never asking if she was okay. The first few times they had, of course, but regretted it when she'd become irritable and snappy. She was thankful she only taught the older students; some of them understood that she had other things on her mind, and were more inclined to forget her behaviour, dismissing it as stress.

She'd learnt to keep her emotions in check, particularly when other people were around. Aside from her telekinesis behaving erratically, her telepathy sometimes flared up uncontrollably, and she picked up the thoughts of those around her. It might have been the Professor's shields failing, but she doubted that. All she really knew was she wasn't doing it deliberately.

 

_Scott was gone. The Professor was gone. Both were ripped from her grasp while she wasn't watching and now she couldn't find them. She should use Cerebro to find them, but she couldn't find it; it wasn't where it had been last time. She would have to search normally, but where was she supposed to start? They weren't where they were supposed to be, and in her confusion she became disorientated._

_She was falling again._

_This time it there was a distinct 'splash' of water. But it wasn't the end, and she kept sinking, all the while trying to claw her way back to the surface. Back to air._

_Back to life._

_In the back of her mind the seductive whisper of what was to come taunted her. Its fine, golden tendrils snaked their way into her mind, tempting her with the power to save herself; to save her fiancé; to save her mentor. To return to the life she knew._

_It was all a lie and now she couldn't find her way back._


End file.
